The present invention pertains to means for using water and steam in internal combustion engines to provide better engine efficiency and a lower use of fuel. It has been known in the prior art that mixing steam or water vapor with fuel and air in a carburetor of an internal combustion engine, such as a gasoline engine, has certain advantageous effects. However, in the prior art there has not been an effective means of providing control of the flow of water or steam into the carburetor or into other points of an engine.
The present invention improves over the prior art. It provides first, second, third and fourth conduits which are interrelated to provide proper regulation of flow of water from a reservoir so that steam converted from the water can flow into the carburetor and adapter plate of an engine with an illustration being provided for a gasoline engine used for automobiles.
The invention has a first conduit extending from the water reservoir to be heated by heat from the exhaust pipe of an automobile, and thence extending into an opening in the adapter plate bore of an engine at a point beneath the throttle plate of the carburetor. The invention has a second conduit having one end open to the atmosphere and affixed to the exhaust pipe and extending therefrom to the bore forming the fuel flow path in the carburetor. A third conduit connects the first and second conduits, while a fourth conduit connects the third and first conduits for purposes of providing proper flow regulation. The interrelationships of the four conduits with flow regulating members forms a flow control system.
The flow control system has an arrangement of flow control members which are placed within the first, second and fourth conduits to regulate water flow. A flow control member is placed within the first, second and fourth conduits.
The flow control members in the preferred embodiment are spiral orifice pieces which can be of helical thread size. The orifice pieces can be the size of a 3/16 inch (0.48 cm) diameter screw having 24 threads per inch (per 2.54 cm) of length. The length of one of the spiral orifice pieces within the first conduit is a function of the engine cylinder displacement for the engine with which the system is used. Helical thread sizes are commercially available in the form of headless screws, and these can be used as the spiral orifices as they are customarily manufactured with close tolerances.
The spiral orifice pieces provide the advantage of having a long flow path over a short distance due to the flow path being wound helically about the cylindrical base of the orifice piece. The bends in the spiral orifice flow path create more friction than would be caused by a straight orifice path of the same length, which additional friction increases the pressure drop across the orifice. The orifice pieces thus act to control and regulate the flow of water and of water and air through the various conduits to provide the desired amount of water and water and air.
The spiral orifice pieces have no moving parts and thus offer many advantages over previous types of flow control valves that have been used in steam or water vapor injection systems, as there is no maintenance necessary for the orifice pieces, and without moving parts the probability of malfunction is much less than with a valve having moving parts. Yet without moving parts, the arrangement of the conduits with their orifice pieces allows regulation and adjustment of flow to provide the amount of flow desired.
The size of the cylinder in automobile engines and other engines is designed so that the engine can deliver the amount of power necessary for peak load conditions when great acceleration or delivery of power is needed. However, at operating conditions when the load is light, such as idle conditions, or at cruise conditions, i.e., when the automobile is not being accelerated and is riding on flat terrain, the demand upon the engine is not as great. Therefore, though the engine has the capacity to deliver power desired under peak load conditions, such as acceleration, it is not as efficient as possible under light load conditions such as at idle or at cruise. The present invention is thus designed so that the engine can operate at full capacity under peak load conditions without the injection of steam into the fuel-air mixture, but so that at light load conditions, steam can be injected into the fuel-air mixture so that less of the fuel-air mixture goes to the engine cylinder than would go were not the steam present, that is, that would go under normal conditions of the engine. Thus, the present invention is designed to accommodate and to adjust to those circumstances when an engine is oversized for the load conditions to which it is subjected. The present invention, by reducing the amount of air and fuel going through the intake manifold accomplishes this by providing a regulated flow of steam to be mixed with the fuel-air mixture to reduce the amount of fuel-air flowing to the engine cylinders.
The ratio of air to fuel is not changed by injection of the steam. The steam only takes up space that would normally be filled with a fuel-air mixture.
The flow control system operates as desired under other engine loads in addition to idle and cruise. When the throttle is in the wide open position, there is no water flow through the first conduit. Thus when the engine is in need of a fuel-air mixture without steam at wide open throttle, at peak load conditions, no steam is injected into the fuel-air mixture of the carburetor. In throttle positions between wide open throttle and cruise, the invention acts to inject an amount of steam less than the amount injected at cruise, but more than the amount injected at wide open throttle.